In recent years, the traffic of a mobile communication network has been increased every year due to speeding-up of a mobile network, improvement in performance of a mobile terminal, an increase in the number of mobile terminals, and the like. In addition, the traffic increase of the mobile communication network is accelerated along with the spread of smart phones or the like.
Meanwhile, in a communication carrier, an attempt is made to offload the traffic to a wireless local area network (LAN) by using a hot spot of the wireless LAN such as Wireless-Fidelity (Wi-Fi: registered trademark).
Switching between turning-on and off of a wireless LAN function in a mobile terminal is performed by a manual operation of a user. For example, when the wireless LAN function is turned on, the mobile terminal detects an access point of a wireless LAN, and automatically switches a communication path thereof to the wireless LAN in a case where the access point of the wireless LAN is found.
However, if the wireless LAN function is turned on, power consumption increases due to a detection operation of an access point, and thus many users turn off the wireless LAN function. In relation thereto, a technique is known in which turning-on and off of the wireless LAN function are automatically controlled with detection of communication using a predetermined protocol as a trigger (for example, refer to Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2004-312069, Japanese National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2009-503926, and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2010-028416).